Smile Charles

Once an unknown actor, the protagonist entered the adult entertainment industry simply to make a living, and now lives overseas, working as an online adult-content streamer. He suffers from a condition that leaves him smiling no matter the situation, and when anxiety overwhelms him, he has to stop in the street and strike a Wing Chun stance. Then a chance encounter with Mari, a woman who may or may not be a con artist, leads them into an unlikely life together and begins to change everything. Oh Young-doo’s Smile Charles is an idiosyncratic character comedy set against an unfamiliar foreign backdrop. The protagonist makes a living performing for adult-content streams and must send child support to Korea every month; caught in a reality that gives him no reason to smile, he remains, paradoxically, always “smiling.” It is this contradiction that gives the film its strange pathos. Oh Young-doo first connected with BIFAN when the omnibus film The Neighbor Zombie (2009) won the Jury’s Choice Award, and later made Invasion of Alien Bikini (2010) and Young Gun in the Time (2012). This film marks his long-awaited return. The disarmingly relaxed, deadpan performance of actor Hong Seo-baek, one of Oh’s longtime collaborators, is the comic engine that drives the film.